'Oculus' review: Haunted-mirror story revisits old-time horror

Mike Flanagan is a mostly-TV director who's carved out an odd little
niche -- movies with slightly pretentious titles about women going through
scary things. But then maybe you saw "Absentia," or already have plans to see
his upcoming "Somnia."

For now, though, we have "Oculus."

This time it's the old story, beloved of British horror films, of the
haunted mirror. You know, the one that used to belong to some wastrel duke (who
then killed himself) and has since been bought by some poor sap who keeps
staring into it. And staring.

And then looking down at the gun in his hand.

The recycling itself isn't a problem; scary movies are often about
grisly resurrections. Also cozy familiarity. We want new scares, true. But if
you want to start us off with, say, a big new house, a dog that barks at things
we can't see and things that go bump in the night, that's fine. It's where you
go from there that matters.

"Oculus," however, goes in too many directions.

The movie begins with a violent flashback, then skips ahead to Junior
being let out of the asylum. Lucky for him, he has a big sister waiting for
him, eager to continue his therapy by bringing him back to their childhood home
-- while giving us the backstory in fits and starts.

Seems that a decade ago, the family decorated their new suburban palace
with one of those cursed mirrors; soon it took Dad and Mom, and helped send Kaylie
into the foster system and Tim into a doctor's care. But now Kaylie is going to
do two things: Prove, scientifically, that the looking-glass really is evil,
and then destroy it forever.

This is not a particularly strong setup -- no one in the audience has
any doubts that the mirror is possessed -- and it's not helped by its actors. Karen
Gillan is particularly snappish and overcaffeinated as Kaylie -- she whips her hair
around like a cat-o-nine-tails -- and Brenton Thwaites isn't much more than a
skittish whiner as Tim.

And then the story confuses things further by not only cutting
constantly back to the family's original trauma, but by having the adult
characters also hallucinate seeing themselves as kids, which eventually turns
everything into a mashup of flashbacks and visions.

It's actually a two-way street -- their younger versions seem to be
aware of them, too -- which actually hints at a far more fascinating, albeit
depressing, ghost story: What if it was about innocent kids being haunted by
their own, sad, incredibly screwed-up adult selves?

But instead, though, we get a lot of far more typical angry ghosts, all
with broken teeth and ball-bearing eyes, and victims whom, no matter how bad
things get, never think of calling the police.

Flanagan works well with the younger actors -- Annalise Basso, as young
Kaylie, is a fierce little warrior -- and there are a few shocks, of the usual
jump-out-and-shout-boo variety. But even those are so predictably paced that you
can almost count the beats until they arrive.

None of this is quite as scary, or as original as Flanagan seems to
think it is (he actually first made this film as a short, and once had many
more episodes planned, tracing the mirror's history). Then again, nor is it
quite as tiresome as another zombie/teen dystopia/vampire flick.

It's just a little vague, a little familiar, a little fake. You know. Like
a reflection in an old mirror.

The lowdown: The old haunted-mirror story, with the two survivors
of a family tragedy trying to prove that it was the reflection-made-'em-do-it.
Nothing very new here, or very bad, but young stars Karen Gillan and Brenton
Thwaites aren't particularly appealing and you can predict most of the shocks
to the minute. The film contains violence and strong language.